Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine zero is the text line shout out to the
Hall of Famer Steve at Water four joining us in
the last hour.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You missed the part of that.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You can go to Broncos Country dot Com, slash podcast,
or wherever you gets podcast, Apple, it Tunes, Spotify that
he told the free read designed, iHeartRadio, app.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Nailed it, almost know it. What do you get? Take
you for going to a podcast as well? Marm Grant
Smith's out there at Ball Arena tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So justin we were talking about before we got to
derailed a little bit, but we were talking about the
Broncos schedule. Yes, as it was. I think you boy
and I both see the first two weeks the Titans
of Colts. You see those as potential w's for the Broncos.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You got the Chargers in week three. We talked about
that Monday Night football. Yeah, man, Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think we all harkened back to last year and
the shootout. The Bengals have had an interesting off season
in which they jettison lou Hanrumo, their defensive coordinator. They
paid Jamar Chase an absurd amount of money was forty
something million per year as a wide receiver, they brought
back to Higgins. They've got all that money tied up
in the offense. Trey Hendrickson is still sitting there saying,
(00:58):
I'm not going to play unless, like you, had a
new contract. He's the only viable piece they have on defense.
Is they lost even more players from Maine, Pratt included
Cincinnati Bengals are gonna be the most exciting team to
score forty points and not win a game this year.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, because they're going to score forty five. Actually, I
mean the places they have are ridiculous. But again, you
know they say defense wins championship, how about defense actually
wins regular season games too, Like you need a defense
to be able to do something. You get an extra
night to prepare against Cincinnati, that's going to help you
a lot. And think about it's coming off a game
against the Chargers where we both talked about this physical
(01:31):
They're going to be a physical team. So at Cincinnati,
are they a physical team? No, they're not going to
be that type of team. So you'll get some help there.
But this is where all the help that you got
in the off season with your draft picks and all
the different moves that you made, This is what it's
all going to go at step up for you. So
we'll see what happens at that game. I look forward
to seeing what the Broncles will do. Will they go
(01:51):
be the type of office that would try to control
the clock by whether the football a whole lot more
or will they say, hey, we can go toe to
toe with Cincinnati and so be interesting to see how
that works.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I didn't like Cincinnati's offseason. I didn't like the moves
that they made. They really didn't draft anybody that would
they would be what you would consider a starter. They
did grab a couple offensive linemen, you know late Jaylor
Riversdale and the Fairchild. They got Sjamar Stewart in the
first round, which the guy I wasn't a big fan.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I'm more of a more.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Of a physical specimen than football player, you know, more
athletes than football player. Demetrius Knight in the second is
the will probably to replace Jermaine Press. And then you know,
on the defense and free agency, they didn't add much
either TJ. Slaton along the defensive line or in Burks
the linebacker position, but they used to really add much
to what it was. They lost a lot and I
just don't see a team here that's going to be
as competitive as they were last year. I think the
(02:38):
Broncos can win this Monday at football.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, and they really can. And again, this is one
of those games where even it comes down to last year,
you complete one pass and it's a total different ballgame.
You win that one. Honestly, you complete one pass and
the game ends at a tie. Now you had two
possessions at overtime where if you pick up one first
down you win that game or you tied the game.
But it looked like they started playing for that little
you know, And I was like, oh, okay, well because
(03:01):
you saw the expulsive plays no longer being called right right,
So you think about the logs touched out past the
Barvin Mims. That's an explosive play, great throw, by the
way by bo Nicks. But you stop doing that and
you started to play for the tie. You started to
play to say, hey, let's try to secure this playoff spot,
and we could do so by tying this game rather
than by going out and winning the game. This will
be one of those games though, that you have to
(03:22):
come out and you need to be explosive early. You
need to get on top of them early, because no
matter where this game is, Joe Burrow's not going to
step step back and his head off the football. He's
going to want to throw. I mean, he has two
wide receivers that are very well compensated and he wants
to get the ball to him. So it's going to
be very interesting to see what the Broncos would do
with their dbs. And I'm interested because I'm very very
(03:43):
excited to see that Money and I match up.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
The one edge I will give to Cincinnati in that game,
it would be the return of somuchip Run. It brought
him back and might have a little insider knowledge on
what it is as Sean wants to do, given his
experience in this offense before. So just just one little,
you know, one little piece, I think. But this is
where the schedule starts to get tough for the Denver Broncos.
I not to say that that the Bengals, Chargers, Colts,
(04:06):
and Titans aren't tough.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The Chargers Bengals are certainly competitive football team.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But going on the road on a short week Monday
at football, you gotta be Sunday morning early in Philadelphia
to take on the defending football champs.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We know Vic Fangiel is going to have that defense.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Perhaps we saw what Saquon Barklay and that offense was
able to do last year. You're coming off a short week.
This is this is a tough ask any week. The
fact that you're losing a day on top of it,
not just losing a day, losing a full day because
you had a game on Monday night, So really you're
losing two days. You know, in terms of how you
view this short week game on the East Coast with
(04:38):
the specter of London looming behind it, this is this
is gonna be interesting. You hope that they'll be competitive
in this game. You hope that they can find a
way to pull it out. But that's a tough ask.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean I call it one of those, you know,
scheduled losses, and I know Steve didn't like that, but
it is what it is. And you're going to have
two very very tough games back to back Chargers and
then on Monday night against the Bengals, and then on
a short week now you have to go across country
and play against Philadelphia and you know what they bring
to the table. They want to beat you up. You
talk about physical. That's the number one physical team in
(05:10):
the NFL. That's what they do. They would to run
the football, and they would to beat you up up
front on offense and on defense. And they're going to
have the pass rushers ready to go. So the offensive
line that again the Broncos signed last year, Hey, you
got to go and step up because this will be
their toughest test of the year. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That really, I think that really will sort of be
a litmus test of what this team is early.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It may not.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's not a defining moment in that you are what
you what this final score of this game is. But
this is a tough game early against a team that
figures to compete for Super Bowls. And this will be
the first real litmus test at that point. And if
the schedule has broken the way we think it is,
where you're free and one, four to oh at that
point something like that, you know it will be it
will be that test to say, Okay, are we a
(05:53):
legit four and oh or did we just get some
some easy ones early?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And let me ask you a question on that too.
Just stick with Philly for a hot second. Do you
think they're a team that's going to repeat, Like if
you would put your money on it and say, hey,
here's a team that has a great chance to be
able to repeat. What do you think about Philadelphia doing it?
I don't. I'm not.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I would not say that simply because I think that
division has gotten tougher. You know, Washington, I think they'll
have a little bit of aggression, cause they're not going
to sneak up on people this year. But they're a
good football t Yeah, dan Quin and Quiff Kingsburg's got
the team, hummin that. Jayden Daniels is an absolute star
in this league, and he's gonna be better in year two.
And so that's one of those things where I look
at that and say, Okay, Washington might not make it
as far in the playoffs or have quite as good
(06:31):
a record, but they're still gonna be a good football team.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Dallas, I think is sneaky, gonna be a good football
team this year. Hey, you talked about that yesterday. I
was hearing you on the show. And I think a
lot of people they look at Dallas that every year.
For the Bulls part, they say, well, Jerry doesn't know
what he's talking about, and I get it right. They
haven it into the Super Bowls. It's ninety five, right,
But you look at that roster and if things come
together with the team that they have, that's a pretty
(06:53):
good unit.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
They went out and they hired an offensive line coach
to be the offensive coordinator, Brian Shott, and hire Wills
to run a football you know, and they've got Javonte
and then Jayden Blue out of Texas is going to
be the one two punch there.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And then they got George Pickens to go with Ceedee Lamb.
And I think their skill sets compliment each other if
they can find a way to work you know, work
all those uh work those egos out. I guess I
should say dak Press got coming back healthy and he's
lost weight. He's lost a bunch of weight, trim down
and ready for this. I think Dallas is a sleeper team.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Last year I said the two sleeper teams for me
were Arizona and Washington. And Washington certainly paid, you know,
paid dividends are Arizona maybe a little less. So this
year I would go with Arizona and Dallas. I think
both those teams are going to be better than people
think they are.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I like Dallas. I like Dallas a little bit more.
Arizona's by the way, I mean you look at them,
I mean that type of team has Just think about
the the NFC West and you look at the teams
that's going to fall back to earth. San Francisco is
not going to be that type of team that they
used to be in the past. Right and then Seattle,
what's to see? What you see with them?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Sam Darnold now running the show on the offense, and
what are they They don't have an identity they used to.
The Rams still figure to be competitive. But you look
at what Arizona did on defense this year. We'll get
back to this ed it to say, you know what
Arizona did on defense this year? They added Dalvin Tomlinson
at the no Chie free agency, Kaleis Campbell.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Over there at the end.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
They went out and got a keen Davis Gaither from
the Bengals, one of their better defensive players.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
That brought him over.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
They had a Josh Sweat as an edge rusher from Philly.
They went out and drafted Will Johnson, the corner that
a lot of people thought were gonna go first. They
added Walter Nolan in the draft Cody Simon in the
fourth rounds and the middle back. They have loaded up
on defense there and the offense isn't bad. It just
needs to kind of sort of come together a little
bit more and be a little bit more consistent. And Matt,
I tell you, Arizona to me, is is a sleeper
(08:31):
team in the OBC this year.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Their team that could make some noise there, team that
could be second in the division, because I think the
Rams would take that one for sure, especially with Devonte
Adams going there. I just yaffled that stuff, and you know,
and having Pooka on the other side, hack of pick
your poison that it's going to be a problem for everybody.
And there were a team, honestly that I would say
this if it wasn't snowing. And I get it, you
play the elements. It is what it is. But if
it's not snowing in Philadelphia, you could go ahead make
(08:55):
an argument that the Rams would have took that game
against Philly.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Stafford's bad in the snow, honestly, and he's still hadn't
played a heck of a game in that snow. But
that's that's like his kryptonite or whatever he is the
weather type stuff like that. It'd be fascinating to see.
We don't get to play Arizona this year. We will
play Dallas. We'll get to that one at a minute,
but we do play Arizona. I guess in the preseason
the count so so Philadelphia tough, tough morning game, and
then you turn around an even tougher earlier morning game
(09:20):
as you fly across the pond to foggy London Town
to go play in Tottenham against.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The New York Jets. Uh yeah, I'll know what the
Jets have. I mean, obviously Justin Fields will be the quarterback.
You would assume that he will be the starting quarterback.
But after fields day, what else? Yeah, team you got
Breese Hall care Wilson is still there. Right So, but
every team has some sort of star power, right, But
(09:44):
do they have enough guys on the roster to really
become dangerous? I don't think the Jets, so that's yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Especially on the offensive side of ball. They've got a
they've got a defense that could sort of pre build.
I mean, coming from the the Robert solid to the
you know, they're gonna bewitching philosophy a little bit with
with Aaron Glenn, but I mean, you got a pretty
decent defense. They added Andre Cisco at free safety from
Jacksonville and Brandon Stevens from Baltimore at the corner. They
brought in Derek Nandi to be a defensive tackle from
Kansas City, and most of the guys they drafted were
(10:10):
backup type guys or second string type guys with the outs,
with the exceptions of on the offense, Mason Taylor, Jason
Taylor's son at the tight end position, and Armand Membo
at right tackle.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I like Darren Mougie.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think he's going to have his team competitive eventually,
but I think it's way too early in the process
for this to this to be a thing.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I think Mason Taylor is one of those guys again
drafted from LSU that we all talked about that if
the Broncos were able to get that type of guy,
he would have been really nice to have. Obviously he'll
be with the Jets, but again there's a lot of
young guys and they're going to try to learn on
the fly. But a very interesting week for the Broncos.
That is a very winnable game. You should win that game,
and you talked about it earlier, right, if you could
(10:48):
get to three and three, four and two, then things
start to lighten up a bit. You have the Giants
at home coming up next, but the Giants are coming
up with a lot of rests before the play against
the Broncos.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Giants will be coming off a Thursday night football games,
they're gonn fifteen days rest, coming into a game in
Denver where the Broncos will be flying back from London
and trying to try to get back on American time
and get reacclimated with no bye week after again coming
through that stretch of the Chargers bangles on Monday night
football at Philly, at London and then back home.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And there's another aspect that we're not talking about, to
being able to see a family, but you're not going
to be able to be home for what you're saire
going to stay out there in Philly and the right
and then you go fly out. So let's say you
fly out, but on Saturday? Do you fly out on
this one on Sunday? Is there not Sunday but on
a Friday? I mean, because we've seen it before where
teams will fly out on Friday.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well, I think they'll go out the whole week to
Philadelphia or go out early today because I think you
want to get the two hours acclamation, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay, so then when do you leave? Okay, So so
you'll leave Philly, you go straight to you fly straight.
What I'll say it is, so when do you go
out to Philadelphia though for the game? If you fly
out of Saturday, or do you fly on Friday, like
you fly out on you.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Got Monday night football? All right, kiss your families, goodbye,
We're going on Tuesday. Well, this is my point. So
this is where it comes back to the game against
the Giants. So then you fly on Tuesday. Then let's
say you fly Tuesday. Yeah, you fly Tuesday, because what
makes sense? The fly Wednesday, you fly on Tuesday. So
you will go two weeks pretty much. I see your
family less you fly them out to London, you know,
(12:16):
to come hang out for the week, which.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Some of them will let me. I said, we saw
that last time we were out there.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But that's one of those things where you know, everybody
talks about the Giants being a pushover, but you're coming
off of just just a brutal stretch of games, and
I'm like Man, this could kind of be a trap
game for the Broncos where you're looking at an opponent
that on paper, you're better than a vacuum on a
neutral field, whatever, you're better than the Giants, but you're
coming off a brutal road stretch, you know. And some
physical games in there too. The Jets defense is physical.
(12:42):
You got the the the Eagles or their physical football team.
You get the Chargers and we do some physical football team.
You got a bunch of physical games in there. I
don't know, man, I worry about that game being a
trap game. Maybe it's just me panicking a little, you know,
on the front end of this, But as I look
at it now, it's just one of those things that
has me like we could a game we should.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
One of the biggest things that's always you always have
when you look at the schedule. The biggest thing is
not just the teams that you play, but when you
play them. And there's a lot of games that actually
won and lost. It's just based off of that alone.
And those are one of the games where you look
at the Giants because of when you play them, so
they get it's a winnable game. There's always one game
in the season. Two games of the season that you
lose that you shouldn't have lost. There's a couple of
(13:22):
games that you win that maybe you shouldn't have won.
That could be one that the Broncos they might want
to circle on that could be dangerous the next game though, well.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Hold on because there's a Russell Wilson revenge fast to
the quarterback in this Giants game. There's also another revenge
factor in this game. Former Bronco Montreal Washington also.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
On the New York Giants. Now.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I don't know if anybody remembers Montreal, the guy was
drafted ahead of Isaiah Pacheco that everybody was mad about.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, he's on the Giants now as well. Okay, well,
I mean for all five people who care about that though,
of them, they think what they would definitely look at
that game, would say, okay, hey, revenge right there, right
a game that I think he is going to be
a tough game.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Again, you know, at least you get him here at home,
and this is a two week home stand. You should
be reacclimated, so you're going to give it your best.
But you got the Dallas Cowboys and they get a
two twenty five game. First, the two twenty five games
of the season, there are October nineteen, October twenty six,
excuse me, and that's that game right there. I mean,
if you get through the Giants game, that game could
be a slug fest.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, if it wouldn be one where it will be
a defensive battle. That will be a defensive battle because
the Broncos matchup pretty well defensively against the Cowboys and
what they have. And Dak will step back and he
will throw that rock. So you will have your opportunities
in that game. But on the opposite side, it's all
about the maturation of bow Knicks. There's certain games on
this schedule where we look at it say, okay, if
(14:44):
you played the way that you did as a rookie,
you're not going to win. This is one of those
games and bo Dicks has to take that next step.
And it was around actually this time. If you look
last year where he started to take that next step.
You know, everybody remembers the game against the Falcons where
he looked fantastic for a touchdown pass. This is you know,
Tampa Bay. Earlier in the year, we could say, okay,
he's starting to now take that next step This is
(15:05):
the game, though, we have to say, Okay, what type
of quarterback are you going to be? Are you going
to step into that top fifteen quarterback in the NFL realm? Like,
is this going to be the guy that you are?
And if he is that type of quarterback, if this game,
Broncos should be able to beat the Cowboys. If he's not, though,
then it will be that slugfest it is anybody's game.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, it's it's gonna be interesting. They have a lot
of offensive firepower. You know, you add George Pickens. It
remains to be seen how that's gonna work in that room.
And then Javonte weaves factor as well.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of different things. Javonte Williams, he
wants to run the ball, but I mean, as we
saw last year with Davonte Williams, there were so many
different times where he had a guy where he had
a lane wide ope, he just couldn't get there.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah you know you need one yard, I'll get you two, coach.
What if I need three, I'll get you two coaches exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Or I'll get you a half a yard, which happened
a lot with Javonte, Or I'll slip in the backfield.
But he's with the Cowboys now. But what's a quickly
And I know we love our j Harvey and what
he brings. I mean, you know, just his lower body
is ridiculous. But he just shows how quickly a career
could change with what injury. I mean, Javonte was before
that injury was a dog man. I mean he would
(16:12):
say four or five different guys, so continue to run,
tough to bring down. Had great runs against Baltimore Dallas.
He had a great run again the Packers. He had
a tremendous run. But again, it just shows you that
one injury away from making what your superpower would be
his lower body to something where he's not that effective
as a running back. Yeah, and it wasn't. He just
(16:33):
wasn't last year. Yeah, we'll see. I mean again, you're
coming off that that injury, the same injury JK. Dobbins head.
He took him a while to come back. We'll see
if Javonte looks better this year.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
We come back justin Adam's I gonna continue to go
over this schedule.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You guys listening to Broncos Country Night.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The text line we've been going over the Broncos schedules
thus far, game by game. We're gonna go out to
the text line here real quick and uh, I had
a couple of good texts that came in earlier.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Didn't a chance to get to him. Uh. Someone nine said, Hey, Steve,
who's already left.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He's one of my top five all time broadcos. You
autographed your rookie card for me? Is it worth a lot?
I'm not selling, but I want to ensure who better
to ask the man himself. We'll tell you what. I'll
text Steve and we'll figure out. I don't know, we'll
look up the value of that. Uh that that that card.
I'm sure it's it's played back, especially in this market here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
so that would be uh, that would be something that
I would think you'd you'd wanna, uh hang your hat
(17:27):
on the three oh seven, said Jamal Murray. Not consistent
enough to be a max player. I hope he has
a great one and we you know, get that game seven.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, that'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
A couple of texts here on uh. On the Broncos schedule,
early seven to oh says Raiders have no one on
defense aside from Crosby. Okay, maybe chin uh Janty and
Bowers scary for sure. Pete has a rough defense to
work with. Chargers are tough, and I'd be shocked if
Sean doesn't have that first game already circled.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Ain't letting hardball beat him three times in a row.
Sounds nice? Yeah, sounds nice and nice.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
He's gotta be able to handle that his I mean,
they're going to run, They're going to power run the
ball at you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That's what they're going to do. And then Herbert carve
you up all play action and that's always what he
does though, but that's where Harbaugh does his best work.
That's literally Harvar's best work. It's like, okay, hey, what
I'm going to do is I'm going to have a
great running game and I'm going to beat you up
from there. I remember what happened with Frank Gore for example, right,
Frank gorey being that guy with San Francisco was able
to go and run the ball and then you could
set things up. Alex Smith at the time was the
(18:22):
quarterback that you had Colin Kaepernick, but you had enough
pieces where they didn't have the biggest quality pieces where
you look at at wide receiver but you had your
tied endo Vernon Davis, right, you had different pieces you
could be able to go to. Well, you look at
what the Chargers have. They have that and a little
bit more so they could do some things. So it'll
be interesting to see how the Broncos will match up
against the Chargers this year. Yeah, I really will. And
(18:43):
again they just they love to be a beat you
up football team. That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Getting back to the schedule. We were talking about the
Dallas Cowboys. After that, you go on the road to
the Houston Texans in eleven AM game down in Texas.
That's a little weird, you think with that eleven ALAM
kickoff early game. The Broncos only have two of those
this year though, I mean you got the Philadelphia Eagles game.
I guess you could catch the eleven game, which would
(19:09):
be seven thirty here, although you hope they'd be acclimated
over there, and then the other the only other game
they have that's this set is the at Houston Texans
eleven AM kickoff.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, it'll be one of those games where again you
look at you know C. J. Stroud, hold he be
a year number three. That's the question and the hope
that you have is that you hope that Bowns doesn't
have a drop back in production like c J. Stroud
did last year. You hope that should go further. Right.
Houston actually got to the division around and lost to
(19:37):
the Chiefs. But at the same time, c J. Stroud
didn't look good last year. No, and it just period
he did look good.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Bobby Slog got fired because that offense looked dis jointed
and they certainly they didn't change up any.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Of the protection stuff. You're one of year two, that
offensive line was bad.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The one thing I will say that Bo has going
for him that CJ did not is that Bow at
least has a competent offensive line. CJ had, you know,
and still kind of does a hodge podge of differ
players that I'm not sure it's even better this year.
I mean, you look at they got Cam Robinson at
the left tackle. They went out and got but Titus
Howard's kicking inside the left guard. They got Jarret Patterson
at center, Juice Scruggs at right right guard, and Blake
(20:10):
Fisher right tackle.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's that's not a great offensive line. And you look
at who they picked up in the draft and you know,
you got a couple of wide receivers, got a running back,
and you know, for some reason you pick up a quarterback,
which is okay, you know Graham Mertz from Florida, do
you think. But other than that, there's nobody that I see.
Maybe Jaden Higgins, you know, for with Iowa State, but
there's nobody else that I see there that I'm like, Okay,
you got to watch out for this guy. What is
(20:32):
next year?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, this is uh, this will be an interesting year
for the Houston Texans. They'll still feel a great defense.
They didn't really change much on the defense. They added CJ.
Gardner Johns at the strong safety, but other than that,
it's pretty much the same defense they had last year.
It's it's a good defense. I think the Broncos can
go to Houston get this one though. This is one
that I'm not you know, I'm not too too worried about.
We'll see. But you're coming off that road trip and
(20:52):
then you turn around and you're playing the Raiders on
Thursday at football on the short game. Now, thankfully this
one's at home, right, but you got a short week
game against those Las Vegas Raiders. Again, I think the
Raiders have got some pieces that are really nice.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I don't think they have a full football team. They
don't have a full football team yet, but they were
building and they have some places where they could be
able to do something under this rebuilding process that they have.
But no, they're not that type of team. That is,
they're not ready made to do anything. We'll get to
the postseason. Like all these people who talked about the
Raiders are going to be that dark horse team that
could possibly get it to the postseason. They're not that.
(21:24):
They're not that type of team. But they can make
things very interesting. And with Pete Carroll, they will at
least have a defensive mind and we at least have,
let's call it what it is, a head coach who
knows what he's doing to be able to go and
make things difficult on you.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
New quarterback with g you know Smith do running back
with Ashton Janty, they had a Rocki Monster. You've got
a new offensive coordinator and Chip Kelly that they will
figures to look a little different. I'm not a big
fan of the receiving Corgi at cord Meyer's all right,
they had Jack Besh, you know, the receiver out of
TCU and Trey Tucker that they're all right, But I mean,
none of these guys are sitting there scared of me.
(21:59):
This isn't a this is an I got a game
plan for that, you know kind of thing. And then
on the defensive side, they did add some defensive players.
You got Eric Stokes to the corner from the bay,
Jeremy Chin, we all know, Steve Awer's nephew playing strong
safety there.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They added Devin White, the linebacker, Landon Roberts. Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
But again, you got Max Crosby and a bunch of
guys at this point, and we don't know what that's
that's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Devin White is still a good player, the player, Ah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Not really, but if he was, he wouldn't be on
the Raiders, you know, right now kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Bingo like that's that's one of those things. I get.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The name Devin White's got a little bit more cachet
to it than maybe the player Devin White does. But still,
I mean, that's that's you step up from. You know,
Max Crosby and ten talboys. They had running defense last
year They had nothing, didn't they. Yeah it was embarrassing,
Yeah it was. It was terrible what they have. But
again that's a game at home, short week. You should
be able to get that dub. Yeah, it'll be a
tough week.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, tough, tough again, the short week, you know that sucks.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
But the saving grace out of that is that you
got now ten days to prepare for the kids City
gie out of town and you're at home. You don't
have to travel. It's a Thursday football game. If you
can make it through that Raiders game, you got ten
days now for that game you've been circling against Kansas
City when they come to town on November sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Go into the bye week, would be a good record
for the Broncos. Go into the bye week, we would
be somebody would say, hey, this would be a good
place for them. They could be able to do some things.
Where would you like, where would you say it would
be good for them? How many wins? I'm looking at
this thing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You could be nine and four going to the bye
I think here, if I'm doing my math correctly, maybe
not doing my math Crecker there you see two and oh,
two and one, three and one, three and two, four, two,
five and two, five and three, six and three, seven
and three Okay, you could be seven.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You could be seven.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And four, eight and three, you know, going into the
bye week, and I tend to believe you're going to
be seven and four, just based on the math I'm
doing here, and that leaves you up pretty decent stretch
because you've got games again against the Raiders and the
Jags on the stretch. Uh, You've got a home game
against the Chargers, and then you've got some you guys
a while Sunday night game coming off the by against
(24:04):
the Washington Commanders.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know that that's that's gonna be a fun football game.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You hit that bye week at seven and four, I
think you're primed for a playoff run on the back half.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And then you look at the games also in the
second half of the season, and Jacksonville's a gimme. Look,
I know what you're saying, Travis hun Open. Great to
see him?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
What not?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Great to see him? Jacksonville should be a gimme. Green
Bay would be tough, even though that game is at home,
and then at Kansas City on Christmas Day finish up
the season against the Chargers. It would be very important
for this team to get to that seven win mark
by the bye week, because for all the games that
we could look at say hey, these are all witable games,
you could also look at all the rest of these
(24:39):
games other than Jacksonville. That's say, hey man, this is
no gimmes at all. Commanders going to be tough on
the road. Daniels his booneggs. The hype on that thing
is going to be incredibly ridiculous. And then you have
the Raiders on the road. We know how things are August.
The Raiders always a tough team to be able to play.
But not only that, but then you have green Bay
at home. Yeah, and green Bay then Jordan Love and
(25:01):
the rest of the team what they bring, and they
always have a quality team that they bring no matter what.
It's always a quality unit that Thosets will have to
be well coached, really well put together. And then Jacksonville
dub Then the last two games of the season, you're
at CAC on Thursday night football, coming off that Jacksonville
game at Arrowhead. You know, Sean Payn's got that circle
after the fiasco to ended last year at Arrowhead. And
(25:24):
then you come home against that physical Chargers team again.
Now you gotta get ten days for that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
You're gonna get ten days rest because you're coming off
that Thursday night football against Kansas City on Christmas. But
you get ten days for that that Chargers, that Chargers
thing looks doable.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, you hope you get ten days. You could get nine,
because you know the whole Saturday Sunday type of deal.
You get an extended week.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Either way you'll get you'll get at least more than
more than you normally would one way the.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Other, depending on where you put yourself in the schedule.
Because Kansas City is they're going to take a step
back now, They're going to still be really good, don't
get me wrong, and it's step back might be you know,
win or two here and there, but those last two games,
you could be looking at it saying you can go
for the division going into the last two games of
the two games of.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The season and you've got the two teams you're probably
up against it for. I think the Chargers are going
to be right there. I think the Chiefs are going
to be right there. I think it's a three horse
race and you've got those final two weeks of the
season that could really be determined on that. If you
if you've handled business post by again, if you're coming
into that thing seven and four, which is what I've
got at Washington side of that football, both of you
coming off of bye week on that that's gonna be
(26:24):
a tough game. I'm not sure you win that, but
you need to pick up the next two at Las Vegas,
the Green Bay at home, and then the Jacksonville game
you pick up, you know, if you lose Washington, then
pick up those three. You're seven to five, then you're
you know, now you're ten and five right going into
those last two games against Kansas City and the Chargers.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Even if you split those, you figure to make the
playoffs and maybe even the division. Right, But what would
you predict? This team would be wildcard team?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Probably wildcard can win team with a wildcard eleven if
the ball bounce is right in one of these games eight,
you know, nine wins at the ball bounce is wrong,
you know, I think that's I think you're a wildcard
football teams.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Wildcard good enough?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Though?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Is wildcard good enough for the fan base, good enough
for the franchise? The direction of where everybody's going?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I think it easy if you win the wildcard game,
or if you're at least more competitive than you were
against Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
The biggest thing is you don't want this team to
take a step back. That's the biggest thing is they
cannot take that step back. And you look at say, okay,
well you were that team that was able to go
and get to the playoffs last year. Then what happened.
That's the last thing that you want is you want
to continue to take the step forward. And again, this
is another season that yes, you would to go far
in the postseason, but it's another evaluation year because it's
all about year three of bow Nicks. It's all about
(27:32):
being able to have where you look at, say, okay,
that Russ money is coming off the books next year. Yeah,
and that's where you push all in.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
If Oo is your guy, you push all in on
it because you've got the rookie quarterback on a rookie deal.
You got the opportunity to go out and pay a
couple of guys, you know, with the rush money coming off. Basically,
you sign you know, you take care of your roster,
You sign your guys, and then you go out and
make a couple of big money moves to fill in
just just a few other spots and roll with it
and push all in on that. You got a two
year window, three year window with the rest of the
(28:00):
rookie deal, the fifth year option, and then before you
got hit the big money portion of paying bon Nix.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
If he's indeed the guy, that's where you start to
see trades. That's where you start to see a lot
of different things come down. You'll be able to go
and make some moves. You know what you could what
the Broncos really could become in many respects, what happened
with the Philadelphia Eagles. You it starts to make those
trades to get those top tier wide receivers or those
top tier pieces that you have. Because you already set
on defense, You're going to be set there for the
most part. You pay the guys that you need to
(28:25):
for sure, right, you go from that direction. But after
that you look at say, okay, hey, on offense, what
are we missing? Maybe something on wide receiver?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
You never know, I mean, that's you know, well, but
he'll be a year older and yeah, he's a big
slot anyway, you know, you really do need that that
tight end tight end At some point, I think, yeah,
I think those are the things you kind of do
and that maybe you know, you may bring a veteran
running back end to pair up with with Harvey or
whatever else you got going on in running back room
at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
But I think that's what this is. I think this
rue this year is.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
A litmus test on okay, we we we caught fire
last year. We look like we got something. Let's run
it back. See what we've got. If this is what
we believe it is. And if it is, then we
need to push all our tips to the center of
the table this next off season to surround bow with
everything that he needs to succeed because we got a
we got a three year window here to try to
win something while he's on a Rooie deal.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I think you push it in either way.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, he's not the guy if he regresses to a
part where you're like, wait a minute, did we make
a mistake.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
But we don't talk about this enough. So what would
regression look like like? What would that look.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Like with bow Nicks, I'm less on see most people
benchmark this with statistical accomplishment. I'm less on that you
could be a better football team this year and have
a worse record just because of the schedule they're playing
this year.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Stuffer, and for Bow, it's not a statistical thing.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
For me, it's like all of a sudden he starts
taking sacks, or all of a sudden he starts throwing picks.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We saw a little stretch last.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Year after the back issue where he started throwing a
couple of interceptions. You know, if he starts doing things
like that, because what makes Bow what he is right
now is the fact that he's ahead of the chains
and not behind them like Russ was so often in
this offense.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Bow doesn't take sacks, and so it'll allows him to
be in third.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Manageable situations where he can go ahead, just make the
quick throw and get rid of the ball and not
have to play hero ball looking for something deep.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And so I.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Think you want to see him build on that a
little bit more consistency on early down plays and be
able to complete those those between the numbers in breaking
passes that are a staple of Champagne offense. You do
that and all of a sudden, you're clicking on that
that Drew brees seventy percent completion percent age.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You know, you're moving the chains. That kind of stuff.
I think that's the step forward, the step backward.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
As all of a sudden, he's taking sacks, all of
a sudden, he's throwing picks, fumbling the football, turning it
over whatever. Those are things where you're like, okay, wait
a minute, did we just not have tape on him?
Last year defense didn't have tape and he snuck up
on him?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Or was was he the guy after all? Oh? He
looks like that. He thought he figured everything out in
the first season. And as we all know about the
game of football, they will humble you. Well, yeah, all
figured out is the minute you need to get out
because you don't. It doesn't matter who you are, you
can humble this game, right, And so we'll see what
happens at Bonies. But I would like to see what
he does with his tight end. Now, now you've got
that joker position right with Ingram, Okay, I want to
see how do you use him? Yeah, because with tight ends.
(31:01):
To me, any team that has a tight end has
a chance to be able to go far the playoffs
if you have a legitimate tight end. Look at all
the teams that generally make it, even Eagles last year,
look at Chiefs. Just look to go down the line.
Washington commander Zach Ertz. I know he's a little bit older,
but he's a guy that's able to get open, able
to still make things happen at the tiding position. All
those different things help out your offense. People don't realize
(31:22):
the importance because the tight end what they do, They
would make things so much easier because they're the easiest throw.
It's easy. Look, it's quick at Spinky, he's your quarterbacks black,
a little blanky right as your safety valve. If you
have a guy who could be able to catch the rockets,
Ask John lay about Shannon Sharpon, how did that work
out for him? Right? Ask Tony Romo ho about Jason Witten?
How did that work out for him? Right? If you
(31:43):
have that guy in place, that helps out your offense.
And it also makes the guys on the outside, the
Cortland Sudden, Marvin Mims, it makes them a whole lot better.
And they just did not have that last year.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Whether you know, I mean, with all due respect to
you know Troutman and all that kind of stuff, I mean,
Troutman's is a disserviceable inline guy. Whatever you had Adkins
who played the h back in the goal line situations,
they hit.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But Hall of Famer Lucas Kroll, you know, was not
getting it done, was not getting it done like he
needed to out there. And despite some reporting earlier in
the year, Rob Gronkowski is not walking through that door.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It would be nice. But even if Rob Gronkowski did
walk through that door, which you want Gronk right now
broken down like that, Yeah, No, I mean you've seen him.
He's lost all the weight.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
He's like, he's like, I'm saying he's scrawny now, but
he's skinny for a Gronkowski. Y.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
No, And there's the reason why you lose all that weight. Look,
he did what he had to do. He had a
great career, But no, for him coming to Denver, that's
not it. But what you can do, though, is you
could be able to use Ingram this season in many
different ways. Now, is Evan Ingram going to be a
guy at the end that's going to go unblock his
behind off? You could run sweeps around him all the time. No,
that's not going to be his game that you don't
have to make that face right there.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I'm like, I hope our season doesn't come down to
Evan Ingram making a block from a guy who played
the position to college.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I will tell you he is not that guy. Yeah,
but he doesn't have to be that guy. He just
has to getting away number one and number two catch
the ball exposed the middle of the field. That's the
secret sauce in the NFL. If you watch the games,
you know you love the games. The secret sauces. Whoever
can expose the middle of the field nowadays can be
able to dictate everything to the defense. And Sean Payne
(33:16):
has a history that you know, you go back and
you look.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I mean, he's had four All Pro seasons at the
tight end position for three different guys. Jeremy Shockey, you had,
of course Tim M Graham and who else did Ben Watson?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Was that the other one they had?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I think, yeah, Ben Watson out there and those So
he's had the offense that that has done that.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I want to get into that a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
We got hit a break here, Broncos Country and Night,
Benjamin Albright, Justin Adamsack Segers rolls out.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We'll be back after this
Nine zero is the text line shout out to the
Hall of Famer Steve at Water four joining us in
the last hour.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You missed the part of that.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You can go to Broncos Country dot Com, slash podcast,
or wherever you gets podcast, Apple, it Tunes, Spotify that
he told the free read designed, iHeartRadio, app.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Nailed it, almost know it. What do you get? Take
you for going to a podcast as well? Marm Grant
Smith's out there at Ball Arena tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So justin we were talking about before we got to
derailed a little bit, but we were talking about the
Broncos schedule. Yes, as it was. I think you boy
and I both see the first two weeks the Titans
of Colts. You see those as potential w's for the Broncos.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You got the Chargers in week three. We talked about
that Monday Night football. Yeah, man, Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think we all harkened back to last year and
the shootout. The Bengals have had an interesting off season
in which they jettison lou Hanrumo, their defensive coordinator. They
paid Jamar Chase an absurd amount of money was forty
something million per year as a wide receiver, they brought
back to Higgins. They've got all that money tied up
in the offense. Trey Hendrickson is still sitting there saying,
(00:58):
I'm not going to play unless, like you, had a
new contract. He's the only viable piece they have on defense.
Is they lost even more players from Maine, Pratt included
Cincinnati Bengals are gonna be the most exciting team to
score forty points and not win a game this year.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, because they're going to score forty five. Actually, I
mean the places they have are ridiculous. But again, you
know they say defense wins championship, how about defense actually
wins regular season games too, Like you need a defense
to be able to do something. You get an extra
night to prepare against Cincinnati, that's going to help you
a lot. And think about it's coming off a game
against the Chargers where we both talked about this physical
(01:31):
They're going to be a physical team. So at Cincinnati,
are they a physical team? No, they're not going to
be that type of team. So you'll get some help there.
But this is where all the help that you got
in the off season with your draft picks and all
the different moves that you made, This is what it's
all going to go at step up for you. So
we'll see what happens at that game. I look forward
to seeing what the Broncles will do. Will they go
(01:51):
be the type of office that would try to control
the clock by whether the football a whole lot more
or will they say, hey, we can go toe to
toe with Cincinnati and so be interesting to see how
that works.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I didn't like Cincinnati's offseason. I didn't like the moves
that they made. They really didn't draft anybody that would
they would be what you would consider a starter. They
did grab a couple offensive linemen, you know late Jaylor
Riversdale and the Fairchild. They got Sjamar Stewart in the
first round, which the guy I wasn't a big fan.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I'm more of a more.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Of a physical specimen than football player, you know, more
athletes than football player. Demetrius Knight in the second is
the will probably to replace Jermaine Press. And then you know,
on the defense and free agency, they didn't add much
either TJ. Slaton along the defensive line or in Burks
the linebacker position, but they used to really add much
to what it was. They lost a lot and I
just don't see a team here that's going to be
as competitive as they were last year. I think the
(02:38):
Broncos can win this Monday at football.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, and they really can. And again, this is one
of those games where even it comes down to last year,
you complete one pass and it's a total different ballgame.
You win that one. Honestly, you complete one pass and
the game ends at a tie. Now you had two
possessions at overtime where if you pick up one first
down you win that game or you tied the game.
But it looked like they started playing for that little
you know, And I was like, oh, okay, well because
(03:01):
you saw the expulsive plays no longer being called right right,
So you think about the logs touched out past the
Barvin Mims. That's an explosive play, great throw, by the
way by bo Nicks. But you stop doing that and
you started to play for the tie. You started to
play to say, hey, let's try to secure this playoff spot,
and we could do so by tying this game rather
than by going out and winning the game. This will
be one of those games though, that you have to
(03:22):
come out and you need to be explosive early. You
need to get on top of them early, because no
matter where this game is, Joe Burrow's not going to
step step back and his head off the football. He's
going to want to throw. I mean, he has two
wide receivers that are very well compensated and he wants
to get the ball to him. So it's going to
be very interesting to see what the Broncos would do
with their dbs. And I'm interested because I'm very very
(03:43):
excited to see that Money and I match up.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
The one edge I will give to Cincinnati in that game,
it would be the return of somuchip Run. It brought
him back and might have a little insider knowledge on
what it is as Sean wants to do, given his
experience in this offense before. So just just one little,
you know, one little piece, I think. But this is
where the schedule starts to get tough for the Denver Broncos.
I not to say that that the Bengals, Chargers, Colts,
(04:06):
and Titans aren't tough.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The Chargers Bengals are certainly competitive football team.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But going on the road on a short week Monday
at football, you gotta be Sunday morning early in Philadelphia
to take on the defending football champs.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We know Vic Fangiel is going to have that defense.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Perhaps we saw what Saquon Barklay and that offense was
able to do last year. You're coming off a short week.
This is this is a tough ask any week. The
fact that you're losing a day on top of it,
not just losing a day, losing a full day because
you had a game on Monday night, So really you're
losing two days. You know, in terms of how you
view this short week game on the East Coast with
(04:38):
the specter of London looming behind it, this is this
is gonna be interesting. You hope that they'll be competitive
in this game. You hope that they can find a
way to pull it out. But that's a tough ask.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean I call it one of those, you know,
scheduled losses, and I know Steve didn't like that, but
it is what it is. And you're going to have
two very very tough games back to back Chargers and
then on Monday night against the Bengals, and then on
a short week now you have to go across country
and play against Philadelphia and you know what they bring
to the table. They want to beat you up. You
talk about physical. That's the number one physical team in
(05:10):
the NFL. That's what they do. They would to run
the football, and they would to beat you up up
front on offense and on defense. And they're going to
have the pass rushers ready to go. So the offensive
line that again the Broncos signed last year, Hey, you
got to go and step up because this will be
their toughest test of the year. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That really, I think that really will sort of be
a litmus test of what this team is early.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It may not.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's not a defining moment in that you are what
you what this final score of this game is. But
this is a tough game early against a team that
figures to compete for Super Bowls. And this will be
the first real litmus test at that point. And if
the schedule has broken the way we think it is,
where you're free and one, four to oh at that
point something like that, you know it will be it
will be that test to say, Okay, are we a
(05:53):
legit four and oh or did we just get some
some easy ones early?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And let me ask you a question on that too.
Just stick with Philly for a hot second. Do you
think they're a team that's going to repeat, Like if
you would put your money on it and say, hey,
here's a team that has a great chance to be
able to repeat. What do you think about Philadelphia doing it?
I don't. I'm not.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I would not say that simply because I think that
division has gotten tougher. You know, Washington, I think they'll
have a little bit of aggression, cause they're not going
to sneak up on people this year. But they're a
good football t Yeah, dan Quin and Quiff Kingsburg's got
the team, hummin that. Jayden Daniels is an absolute star
in this league, and he's gonna be better in year two.
And so that's one of those things where I look
at that and say, Okay, Washington might not make it
as far in the playoffs or have quite as good
(06:31):
a record, but they're still gonna be a good football team.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Dallas, I think is sneaky, gonna be a good football
team this year. Hey, you talked about that yesterday. I
was hearing you on the show. And I think a
lot of people they look at Dallas that every year.
For the Bulls part, they say, well, Jerry doesn't know
what he's talking about, and I get it right. They
haven it into the Super Bowls. It's ninety five, right,
But you look at that roster and if things come
together with the team that they have, that's a pretty
(06:53):
good unit.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
They went out and they hired an offensive line coach
to be the offensive coordinator, Brian Shott, and hire Wills
to run a football you know, and they've got Javonte
and then Jayden Blue out of Texas is going to
be the one two punch there.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And then they got George Pickens to go with Ceedee Lamb.
And I think their skill sets compliment each other if
they can find a way to work you know, work
all those uh work those egos out. I guess I
should say dak Press got coming back healthy and he's
lost weight. He's lost a bunch of weight, trim down
and ready for this. I think Dallas is a sleeper team.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Last year I said the two sleeper teams for me
were Arizona and Washington. And Washington certainly paid, you know,
paid dividends are Arizona maybe a little less. So this
year I would go with Arizona and Dallas. I think
both those teams are going to be better than people
think they are.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I like Dallas. I like Dallas a little bit more.
Arizona's by the way, I mean you look at them,
I mean that type of team has Just think about
the the NFC West and you look at the teams
that's going to fall back to earth. San Francisco is
not going to be that type of team that they
used to be in the past. Right and then Seattle,
what's to see? What you see with them?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Sam Darnold now running the show on the offense, and
what are they They don't have an identity they used to.
The Rams still figure to be competitive. But you look
at what Arizona did on defense this year. We'll get
back to this ed it to say, you know what
Arizona did on defense this year? They added Dalvin Tomlinson
at the no Chie free agency, Kaleis Campbell.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Over there at the end.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
They went out and got a keen Davis Gaither from
the Bengals, one of their better defensive players.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
That brought him over.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
They had a Josh Sweat as an edge rusher from Philly.
They went out and drafted Will Johnson, the corner that
a lot of people thought were gonna go first. They
added Walter Nolan in the draft Cody Simon in the
fourth rounds and the middle back. They have loaded up
on defense there and the offense isn't bad. It just
needs to kind of sort of come together a little
bit more and be a little bit more consistent. And Matt,
I tell you, Arizona to me, is is a sleeper
(08:31):
team in the OBC this year.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Their team that could make some noise there, team that
could be second in the division, because I think the
Rams would take that one for sure, especially with Devonte
Adams going there. I just yaffled that stuff, and you know,
and having Pooka on the other side, hack of pick
your poison that it's going to be a problem for everybody.
And there were a team, honestly that I would say
this if it wasn't snowing. And I get it, you
play the elements. It is what it is. But if
it's not snowing in Philadelphia, you could go ahead make
(08:55):
an argument that the Rams would have took that game
against Philly.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Stafford's bad in the snow, honestly, and he's still hadn't
played a heck of a game in that snow. But
that's that's like his kryptonite or whatever he is the
weather type stuff like that. It'd be fascinating to see.
We don't get to play Arizona this year. We will
play Dallas. We'll get to that one at a minute,
but we do play Arizona. I guess in the preseason
the count so so Philadelphia tough, tough morning game, and
then you turn around an even tougher earlier morning game
(09:20):
as you fly across the pond to foggy London Town
to go play in Tottenham against.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The New York Jets. Uh yeah, I'll know what the
Jets have. I mean, obviously Justin Fields will be the quarterback.
You would assume that he will be the starting quarterback.
But after fields day, what else? Yeah, team you got
Breese Hall care Wilson is still there. Right So, but
every team has some sort of star power, right, But
(09:44):
do they have enough guys on the roster to really
become dangerous? I don't think the Jets, so that's yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Especially on the offensive side of ball. They've got a
they've got a defense that could sort of pre build.
I mean, coming from the the Robert solid to the
you know, they're gonna bewitching philosophy a little bit with
with Aaron Glenn, but I mean, you got a pretty
decent defense. They added Andre Cisco at free safety from
Jacksonville and Brandon Stevens from Baltimore at the corner. They
brought in Derek Nandi to be a defensive tackle from
Kansas City, and most of the guys they drafted were
(10:10):
backup type guys or second string type guys with the outs,
with the exceptions of on the offense, Mason Taylor, Jason
Taylor's son at the tight end position, and Armand Membo
at right tackle.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I like Darren Mougie.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think he's going to have his team competitive eventually,
but I think it's way too early in the process
for this to this to be a thing.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I think Mason Taylor is one of those guys again
drafted from LSU that we all talked about that if
the Broncos were able to get that type of guy,
he would have been really nice to have. Obviously he'll
be with the Jets, but again there's a lot of
young guys and they're going to try to learn on
the fly. But a very interesting week for the Broncos.
That is a very winnable game. You should win that game,
and you talked about it earlier, right, if you could
(10:48):
get to three and three, four and two, then things
start to lighten up a bit. You have the Giants
at home coming up next, but the Giants are coming
up with a lot of rests before the play against
the Broncos.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Giants will be coming off a Thursday night football games,
they're gonn fifteen days rest, coming into a game in
Denver where the Broncos will be flying back from London
and trying to try to get back on American time
and get reacclimated with no bye week after again coming
through that stretch of the Chargers bangles on Monday night
football at Philly, at London and then back home.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And there's another aspect that we're not talking about, to
being able to see a family, but you're not going
to be able to be home for what you're saire
going to stay out there in Philly and the right
and then you go fly out. So let's say you
fly out, but on Saturday? Do you fly out on
this one on Sunday? Is there not Sunday but on
a Friday? I mean, because we've seen it before where
teams will fly out on Friday.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well, I think they'll go out the whole week to
Philadelphia or go out early today because I think you
want to get the two hours acclamation, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay, so then when do you leave? Okay, So so
you'll leave Philly, you go straight to you fly straight.
What I'll say it is, so when do you go
out to Philadelphia though for the game? If you fly
out of Saturday, or do you fly on Friday, like
you fly out on you.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Got Monday night football? All right, kiss your families, goodbye,
We're going on Tuesday. Well, this is my point. So
this is where it comes back to the game against
the Giants. So then you fly on Tuesday. Then let's
say you fly Tuesday. Yeah, you fly Tuesday, because what
makes sense? The fly Wednesday, you fly on Tuesday. So
you will go two weeks pretty much. I see your
family less you fly them out to London, you know,
(12:16):
to come hang out for the week, which.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Some of them will let me. I said, we saw
that last time we were out there.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But that's one of those things where you know, everybody
talks about the Giants being a pushover, but you're coming
off of just just a brutal stretch of games, and
I'm like Man, this could kind of be a trap
game for the Broncos where you're looking at an opponent
that on paper, you're better than a vacuum on a
neutral field, whatever, you're better than the Giants, but you're
coming off a brutal road stretch, you know. And some
physical games in there too. The Jets defense is physical.
(12:42):
You got the the the Eagles or their physical football team.
You get the Chargers and we do some physical football team.
You got a bunch of physical games in there. I
don't know, man, I worry about that game being a
trap game. Maybe it's just me panicking a little, you know,
on the front end of this, But as I look
at it now, it's just one of those things that
has me like we could a game we should.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
One of the biggest things that's always you always have
when you look at the schedule. The biggest thing is
not just the teams that you play, but when you
play them. And there's a lot of games that actually
won and lost. It's just based off of that alone.
And those are one of the games where you look
at the Giants because of when you play them, so
they get it's a winnable game. There's always one game
in the season. Two games of the season that you
lose that you shouldn't have lost. There's a couple of
(13:22):
games that you win that maybe you shouldn't have won.
That could be one that the Broncos they might want
to circle on that could be dangerous the next game though, well.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Hold on because there's a Russell Wilson revenge fast to
the quarterback in this Giants game. There's also another revenge
factor in this game. Former Bronco Montreal Washington also.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
On the New York Giants. Now.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I don't know if anybody remembers Montreal, the guy was
drafted ahead of Isaiah Pacheco that everybody was mad about.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, he's on the Giants now as well. Okay, well,
I mean for all five people who care about that though,
of them, they think what they would definitely look at
that game, would say, okay, hey, revenge right there, right
a game that I think he is going to be
a tough game.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Again, you know, at least you get him here at home,
and this is a two week home stand. You should
be reacclimated, so you're going to give it your best.
But you got the Dallas Cowboys and they get a
two twenty five game. First, the two twenty five games
of the season, there are October nineteen, October twenty six,
excuse me, and that's that game right there. I mean,
if you get through the Giants game, that game could
be a slug fest.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, if it wouldn be one where it will be
a defensive battle. That will be a defensive battle because
the Broncos matchup pretty well defensively against the Cowboys and
what they have. And Dak will step back and he
will throw that rock. So you will have your opportunities
in that game. But on the opposite side, it's all
about the maturation of bow Knicks. There's certain games on
this schedule where we look at it say, okay, if
(14:44):
you played the way that you did as a rookie,
you're not going to win. This is one of those
games and bo Dicks has to take that next step.
And it was around actually this time. If you look
last year where he started to take that next step.
You know, everybody remembers the game against the Falcons where
he looked fantastic for a touchdown pass. This is you know,
Tampa Bay. Earlier in the year, we could say, okay,
he's starting to now take that next step This is
(15:05):
the game, though, we have to say, Okay, what type
of quarterback are you going to be? Are you going
to step into that top fifteen quarterback in the NFL realm? Like,
is this going to be the guy that you are?
And if he is that type of quarterback, if this game,
Broncos should be able to beat the Cowboys. If he's not, though,
then it will be that slugfest it is anybody's game.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, it's it's gonna be interesting. They have a lot
of offensive firepower. You know, you add George Pickens. It
remains to be seen how that's gonna work in that room.
And then Javonte weaves factor as well.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of different things. Javonte Williams, he
wants to run the ball, but I mean, as we
saw last year with Davonte Williams, there were so many
different times where he had a guy where he had
a lane wide ope, he just couldn't get there.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah you know you need one yard, I'll get you two, coach.
What if I need three, I'll get you two coaches exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Or I'll get you a half a yard, which happened
a lot with Javonte, Or I'll slip in the backfield.
But he's with the Cowboys now. But what's a quickly
And I know we love our j Harvey and what
he brings. I mean, you know, just his lower body
is ridiculous. But he just shows how quickly a career
could change with what injury. I mean, Javonte was before
that injury was a dog man. I mean he would
(16:12):
say four or five different guys, so continue to run,
tough to bring down. Had great runs against Baltimore Dallas.
He had a great run again the Packers. He had
a tremendous run. But again, it just shows you that
one injury away from making what your superpower would be
his lower body to something where he's not that effective
as a running back. Yeah, and it wasn't. He just
(16:33):
wasn't last year. Yeah, we'll see. I mean again, you're
coming off that that injury, the same injury JK. Dobbins head.
He took him a while to come back. We'll see
if Javonte looks better this year.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
We come back justin Adam's I gonna continue to go
over this schedule.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You guys listening to Broncos Country Night.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The text line we've been going over the Broncos schedules
thus far, game by game. We're gonna go out to
the text line here real quick and uh, I had
a couple of good texts that came in earlier.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Didn't a chance to get to him. Uh. Someone nine said, Hey, Steve,
who's already left.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He's one of my top five all time broadcos. You
autographed your rookie card for me? Is it worth a lot?
I'm not selling, but I want to ensure who better
to ask the man himself. We'll tell you what. I'll
text Steve and we'll figure out. I don't know, we'll
look up the value of that. Uh that that that card.
I'm sure it's it's played back, especially in this market here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
so that would be uh, that would be something that
I would think you'd you'd wanna, uh hang your hat
(17:27):
on the three oh seven, said Jamal Murray. Not consistent
enough to be a max player. I hope he has
a great one and we you know, get that game seven.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, that'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
A couple of texts here on uh. On the Broncos schedule,
early seven to oh says Raiders have no one on
defense aside from Crosby. Okay, maybe chin uh Janty and
Bowers scary for sure. Pete has a rough defense to
work with. Chargers are tough, and I'd be shocked if
Sean doesn't have that first game already circled.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Ain't letting hardball beat him three times in a row.
Sounds nice? Yeah, sounds nice and nice.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
He's gotta be able to handle that his I mean,
they're going to run, They're going to power run the
ball at you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
That's what they're going to do. And then Herbert carve
you up all play action and that's always what he
does though, but that's where Harbaugh does his best work.
That's literally Harvar's best work. It's like, okay, hey, what
I'm going to do is I'm going to have a
great running game and I'm going to beat you up
from there. I remember what happened with Frank Gore for example, right,
Frank gorey being that guy with San Francisco was able
to go and run the ball and then you could
set things up. Alex Smith at the time was the
(18:22):
quarterback that you had Colin Kaepernick, but you had enough
pieces where they didn't have the biggest quality pieces where
you look at at wide receiver but you had your
tied endo Vernon Davis, right, you had different pieces you
could be able to go to. Well, you look at
what the Chargers have. They have that and a little
bit more so they could do some things. So it'll
be interesting to see how the Broncos will match up
against the Chargers this year. Yeah, I really will. And
(18:43):
again they just they love to be a beat you
up football team. That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Getting back to the schedule. We were talking about the
Dallas Cowboys. After that, you go on the road to
the Houston Texans in eleven AM game down in Texas.
That's a little weird, you think with that eleven ALAM
kickoff early game. The Broncos only have two of those
this year though, I mean you got the Philadelphia Eagles game.
I guess you could catch the eleven game, which would
(19:09):
be seven thirty here, although you hope they'd be acclimated
over there, and then the other the only other game
they have that's this set is the at Houston Texans
eleven AM kickoff.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, it'll be one of those games where again you
look at you know C. J. Stroud, hold he be
a year number three. That's the question and the hope
that you have is that you hope that Bowns doesn't
have a drop back in production like c J. Stroud
did last year. You hope that should go further. Right.
Houston actually got to the division around and lost to
(19:37):
the Chiefs. But at the same time, c J. Stroud
didn't look good last year. No, and it just period
he did look good.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Bobby Slog got fired because that offense looked dis jointed
and they certainly they didn't change up any.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Of the protection stuff. You're one of year two, that
offensive line was bad.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The one thing I will say that Bo has going
for him that CJ did not is that Bow at
least has a competent offensive line. CJ had, you know,
and still kind of does a hodge podge of differ
players that I'm not sure it's even better this year.
I mean, you look at they got Cam Robinson at
the left tackle. They went out and got but Titus
Howard's kicking inside the left guard. They got Jarret Patterson
at center, Juice Scruggs at right right guard, and Blake
(20:10):
Fisher right tackle.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's that's not a great offensive line. And you look
at who they picked up in the draft and you know,
you got a couple of wide receivers, got a running back,
and you know, for some reason you pick up a quarterback,
which is okay, you know Graham Mertz from Florida, do
you think. But other than that, there's nobody that I see.
Maybe Jaden Higgins, you know, for with Iowa State, but
there's nobody else that I see there that I'm like, Okay,
you got to watch out for this guy. What is
(20:32):
next year?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, this is uh, this will be an interesting year
for the Houston Texans. They'll still feel a great defense.
They didn't really change much on the defense. They added CJ.
Gardner Johns at the strong safety, but other than that,
it's pretty much the same defense they had last year.
It's it's a good defense. I think the Broncos can
go to Houston get this one though. This is one
that I'm not you know, I'm not too too worried about.
We'll see. But you're coming off that road trip and
(20:52):
then you turn around and you're playing the Raiders on
Thursday at football on the short game. Now, thankfully this
one's at home, right, but you got a short week
game against those Las Vegas Raiders. Again, I think the
Raiders have got some pieces that are really nice.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I don't think they have a full football team. They
don't have a full football team yet, but they were
building and they have some places where they could be
able to do something under this rebuilding process that they have.
But no, they're not that type of team. That is,
they're not ready made to do anything. We'll get to
the postseason. Like all these people who talked about the
Raiders are going to be that dark horse team that
could possibly get it to the postseason. They're not that.
(21:24):
They're not that type of team. But they can make
things very interesting. And with Pete Carroll, they will at
least have a defensive mind and we at least have,
let's call it what it is, a head coach who
knows what he's doing to be able to go and
make things difficult on you.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
New quarterback with g you know Smith do running back
with Ashton Janty, they had a Rocki Monster. You've got
a new offensive coordinator and Chip Kelly that they will
figures to look a little different. I'm not a big
fan of the receiving Corgi at cord Meyer's all right,
they had Jack Besh, you know, the receiver out of
TCU and Trey Tucker that they're all right, But I mean,
none of these guys are sitting there scared of me.
(21:59):
This isn't a this is an I got a game
plan for that, you know kind of thing. And then
on the defensive side, they did add some defensive players.
You got Eric Stokes to the corner from the bay,
Jeremy Chin, we all know, Steve Awer's nephew playing strong
safety there.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They added Devin White, the linebacker, Landon Roberts. Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
But again, you got Max Crosby and a bunch of
guys at this point, and we don't know what that's
that's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Devin White is still a good player, the player, Ah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Not really, but if he was, he wouldn't be on
the Raiders, you know, right now kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Bingo like that's that's one of those things. I get.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The name Devin White's got a little bit more cachet
to it than maybe the player Devin White does. But still,
I mean, that's that's you step up from. You know,
Max Crosby and ten talboys. They had running defense last
year They had nothing, didn't they. Yeah it was embarrassing,
Yeah it was. It was terrible what they have. But
again that's a game at home, short week. You should
be able to get that dub. Yeah, it'll be a
tough week.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, tough, tough again, the short week, you know that sucks.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
But the saving grace out of that is that you
got now ten days to prepare for the kids City
gie out of town and you're at home. You don't
have to travel. It's a Thursday football game. If you
can make it through that Raiders game, you got ten
days now for that game you've been circling against Kansas
City when they come to town on November sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Go into the bye week, would be a good record
for the Broncos. Go into the bye week, we would
be somebody would say, hey, this would be a good
place for them. They could be able to do some things.
Where would you like, where would you say it would
be good for them? How many wins? I'm looking at
this thing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You could be nine and four going to the bye
I think here, if I'm doing my math correctly, maybe
not doing my math Crecker there you see two and oh,
two and one, three and one, three and two, four, two,
five and two, five and three, six and three, seven
and three Okay, you could be seven.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You could be seven.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And four, eight and three, you know, going into the
bye week, and I tend to believe you're going to
be seven and four, just based on the math I'm
doing here, and that leaves you up pretty decent stretch
because you've got games again against the Raiders and the
Jags on the stretch. Uh, You've got a home game
against the Chargers, and then you've got some you guys
a while Sunday night game coming off the by against
(24:04):
the Washington Commanders.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know that that's that's gonna be a fun football game.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You hit that bye week at seven and four, I
think you're primed for a playoff run on the back half.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
And then you look at the games also in the
second half of the season, and Jacksonville's a gimme. Look,
I know what you're saying, Travis hun Open. Great to
see him?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
What not?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Great to see him? Jacksonville should be a gimme. Green
Bay would be tough, even though that game is at home,
and then at Kansas City on Christmas Day finish up
the season against the Chargers. It would be very important
for this team to get to that seven win mark
by the bye week, because for all the games that
we could look at say hey, these are all witable games,
you could also look at all the rest of these
(24:39):
games other than Jacksonville. That's say, hey man, this is
no gimmes at all. Commanders going to be tough on
the road. Daniels his booneggs. The hype on that thing
is going to be incredibly ridiculous. And then you have
the Raiders on the road. We know how things are August.
The Raiders always a tough team to be able to play.
But not only that, but then you have green Bay
at home. Yeah, and green Bay then Jordan Love and
(25:01):
the rest of the team what they bring, and they
always have a quality team that they bring no matter what.
It's always a quality unit that Thosets will have to
be well coached, really well put together. And then Jacksonville
dub Then the last two games of the season, you're
at CAC on Thursday night football, coming off that Jacksonville
game at Arrowhead. You know, Sean Payn's got that circle
after the fiasco to ended last year at Arrowhead. And
(25:24):
then you come home against that physical Chargers team again.
Now you gotta get ten days for that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
You're gonna get ten days rest because you're coming off
that Thursday night football against Kansas City on Christmas. But
you get ten days for that that Chargers, that Chargers
thing looks doable.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, you hope you get ten days. You could get nine,
because you know the whole Saturday Sunday type of deal.
You get an extended week.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Either way you'll get you'll get at least more than
more than you normally would one way the.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Other, depending on where you put yourself in the schedule.
Because Kansas City is they're going to take a step
back now, They're going to still be really good, don't
get me wrong, and it's step back might be you know,
win or two here and there, but those last two games,
you could be looking at it saying you can go
for the division going into the last two games of
the two games of.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The season and you've got the two teams you're probably
up against it for. I think the Chargers are going
to be right there. I think the Chiefs are going
to be right there. I think it's a three horse
race and you've got those final two weeks of the
season that could really be determined on that. If you
if you've handled business post by again, if you're coming
into that thing seven and four, which is what I've
got at Washington side of that football, both of you
coming off of bye week on that that's gonna be
(26:24):
a tough game. I'm not sure you win that, but
you need to pick up the next two at Las Vegas,
the Green Bay at home, and then the Jacksonville game
you pick up, you know, if you lose Washington, then
pick up those three. You're seven to five, then you're
you know, now you're ten and five right going into
those last two games against Kansas City and the Chargers.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Even if you split those, you figure to make the
playoffs and maybe even the division. Right, But what would
you predict? This team would be wildcard team?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Probably wildcard can win team with a wildcard eleven if
the ball bounce is right in one of these games eight,
you know, nine wins at the ball bounce is wrong,
you know, I think that's I think you're a wildcard
football teams.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Wildcard good enough?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Though?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Is wildcard good enough for the fan base, good enough
for the franchise? The direction of where everybody's going?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I think it easy if you win the wildcard game,
or if you're at least more competitive than you were
against Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
The biggest thing is you don't want this team to
take a step back. That's the biggest thing is they
cannot take that step back. And you look at say, okay,
well you were that team that was able to go
and get to the playoffs last year. Then what happened.
That's the last thing that you want is you want
to continue to take the step forward. And again, this
is another season that yes, you would to go far
in the postseason, but it's another evaluation year because it's
all about year three of bow Nicks. It's all about
(27:32):
being able to have where you look at, say, okay,
that Russ money is coming off the books next year. Yeah,
and that's where you push all in.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
If Oo is your guy, you push all in on
it because you've got the rookie quarterback on a rookie deal.
You got the opportunity to go out and pay a
couple of guys, you know, with the rush money coming off. Basically,
you sign you know, you take care of your roster,
You sign your guys, and then you go out and
make a couple of big money moves to fill in
just just a few other spots and roll with it
and push all in on that. You got a two
year window, three year window with the rest of the
(28:00):
rookie deal, the fifth year option, and then before you
got hit the big money portion of paying bon Nix.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
If he's indeed the guy, that's where you start to
see trades. That's where you start to see a lot
of different things come down. You'll be able to go
and make some moves. You know what you could what
the Broncos really could become in many respects, what happened
with the Philadelphia Eagles. You it starts to make those
trades to get those top tier wide receivers or those
top tier pieces that you have. Because you already set
on defense, You're going to be set there for the
most part. You pay the guys that you need to
(28:25):
for sure, right, you go from that direction. But after
that you look at say, okay, hey, on offense, what
are we missing? Maybe something on wide receiver?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
You never know, I mean, that's you know, well, but
he'll be a year older and yeah, he's a big
slot anyway, you know, you really do need that that
tight end tight end At some point, I think, yeah,
I think those are the things you kind of do
and that maybe you know, you may bring a veteran
running back end to pair up with with Harvey or
whatever else you got going on in running back room
at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
But I think that's what this is. I think this
rue this year is.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
A litmus test on okay, we we we caught fire
last year. We look like we got something. Let's run
it back. See what we've got. If this is what
we believe it is. And if it is, then we
need to push all our tips to the center of
the table this next off season to surround bow with
everything that he needs to succeed because we got a
we got a three year window here to try to
win something while he's on a Rooie deal.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I think you push it in either way.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, he's not the guy if he regresses to a
part where you're like, wait a minute, did we make
a mistake.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
But we don't talk about this enough. So what would
regression look like like? What would that look.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Like with bow Nicks, I'm less on see most people
benchmark this with statistical accomplishment. I'm less on that you
could be a better football team this year and have
a worse record just because of the schedule they're playing
this year.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Stuffer, and for Bow, it's not a statistical thing.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
For me, it's like all of a sudden he starts
taking sacks, or all of a sudden he starts throwing picks.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We saw a little stretch last.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Year after the back issue where he started throwing a
couple of interceptions. You know, if he starts doing things
like that, because what makes Bow what he is right
now is the fact that he's ahead of the chains
and not behind them like Russ was so often in
this offense.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Bow doesn't take sacks, and so it'll allows him to
be in third.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Manageable situations where he can go ahead, just make the
quick throw and get rid of the ball and not
have to play hero ball looking for something deep.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And so I.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Think you want to see him build on that a
little bit more consistency on early down plays and be
able to complete those those between the numbers in breaking
passes that are a staple of Champagne offense. You do
that and all of a sudden, you're clicking on that
that Drew brees seventy percent completion percent age.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You know, you're moving the chains. That kind of stuff.
I think that's the step forward, the step backward.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
As all of a sudden, he's taking sacks, all of
a sudden, he's throwing picks, fumbling the football, turning it
over whatever. Those are things where you're like, okay, wait
a minute, did we just not have tape on him?
Last year defense didn't have tape and he snuck up
on him?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Or was was he the guy after all? Oh? He
looks like that. He thought he figured everything out in
the first season. And as we all know about the
game of football, they will humble you. Well, yeah, all
figured out is the minute you need to get out
because you don't. It doesn't matter who you are, you
can humble this game, right, And so we'll see what
happens at Bonies. But I would like to see what
he does with his tight end. Now, now you've got
that joker position right with Ingram, Okay, I want to
see how do you use him? Yeah, because with tight ends.
(31:01):
To me, any team that has a tight end has
a chance to be able to go far the playoffs
if you have a legitimate tight end. Look at all
the teams that generally make it, even Eagles last year,
look at Chiefs. Just look to go down the line.
Washington commander Zach Ertz. I know he's a little bit older,
but he's a guy that's able to get open, able
to still make things happen at the tiding position. All
those different things help out your offense. People don't realize
(31:22):
the importance because the tight end what they do, They
would make things so much easier because they're the easiest throw.
It's easy. Look, it's quick at Spinky, he's your quarterbacks black,
a little blanky right as your safety valve. If you
have a guy who could be able to catch the rockets,
Ask John lay about Shannon Sharpon, how did that work
out for him? Right? Ask Tony Romo ho about Jason Witten?
How did that work out for him? Right? If you
(31:43):
have that guy in place, that helps out your offense.
And it also makes the guys on the outside, the
Cortland Sudden, Marvin Mims, it makes them a whole lot better.
And they just did not have that last year.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Whether you know, I mean, with all due respect to
you know Troutman and all that kind of stuff, I mean,
Troutman's is a disserviceable inline guy. Whatever you had Adkins
who played the h back in the goal line situations,
they hit.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But Hall of Famer Lucas Kroll, you know, was not
getting it done, was not getting it done like he
needed to out there. And despite some reporting earlier in
the year, Rob Gronkowski is not walking through that door.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It would be nice. But even if Rob Gronkowski did
walk through that door, which you want Gronk right now
broken down like that, Yeah, No, I mean you've seen him.
He's lost all the weight.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
He's like, he's like, I'm saying he's scrawny now, but
he's skinny for a Gronkowski. Y.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
No, And there's the reason why you lose all that weight. Look,
he did what he had to do. He had a
great career, But no, for him coming to Denver, that's
not it. But what you can do, though, is you
could be able to use Ingram this season in many
different ways. Now, is Evan Ingram going to be a
guy at the end that's going to go unblock his
behind off? You could run sweeps around him all the time. No,
that's not going to be his game that you don't
have to make that face right there.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I'm like, I hope our season doesn't come down to
Evan Ingram making a block from a guy who played
the position to college.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I will tell you he is not that guy. Yeah,
but he doesn't have to be that guy. He just
has to getting away number one and number two catch
the ball exposed the middle of the field. That's the
secret sauce in the NFL. If you watch the games,
you know you love the games. The secret sauces. Whoever
can expose the middle of the field nowadays can be
able to dictate everything to the defense. And Sean Payne
(33:16):
has a history that you know, you go back and
you look.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I mean, he's had four All Pro seasons at the
tight end position for three different guys. Jeremy Shockey, you had,
of course Tim M Graham and who else did Ben Watson?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Was that the other one they had?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I think, yeah, Ben Watson out there and those So
he's had the offense that that has done that.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
I want to get into that a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
We got hit a break here, Broncos Country and Night,
Benjamin Albright, Justin Adamsack Segers rolls out.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We'll be back after this
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